Gifted journalist, passionate defender of gay rights
Friends describe him as `guileless' `kind'
Gerald Hannon, a talented and controversial Canadian journalist, educator, and queer activist has died at the age of 77.
He chose to end his life by medical assistance in dying (MAID) after living with quickly progressing atypical Parkinson's disease for four years. He was joined by friends Peter Kingstone, Gerry Oxford, and Ed Jackson as he took his last breath, reported Xtra, the LGBTQ publication to which Hannon contributed.
In a memoriam published by Xtra, friends recalled Hannon as “guileless” and “kind,” a man who was a generous teacher of journalism students and a passionate defender of gay rights.
“When we finally met, I was surprised, disappointed even, that this gentle, softspoken man was the notorious Gerald Hannon. He didn't have horns, as painted by the right-wing media, nor did he breathe fire,” Justine Pimlott, a filmmaker, told Xtra. “And this is exactly what I came to love about him — his ability to be quietly, yet fully, present, and his faculty for observation and non-judgment.”
Hannon grew up in Marathon, Ont., a small town on Lake Superior whose economy was built on pulp.
“It was very beautiful, but isolated and remote,” wrote Hannon on his website. “I trapped rabbits, with a friend. He and I wrestled frequently in the bush. We sometimes fought with knives. I discovered opera.”
He moved to Toronto at 18 and came out as gay six years later.
Hannon's long career in journalism began in 1972 at the gay liberation magazine, The Body Politic, where he was involved from the second issue to the last. He served as a writer and photographer.
“We weren't journalists or particularly activists, but we suddenly became so,” Hannon told the Toronto Sun in 2008.
The magazine tackled issues gay rights activists were passionate about in the 1970s and '80s, such as discriminatory criminal law, workplace issues and sexuality. But it's perhaps most famous for an article Hannon wrote in 1977 entitled Men Loving Boys Loving Men. The article discussed sexual relationships between adults and minors, and was widely seen as a defence of pedophilia.
After backlash about the article from other media outlets, namely the Toronto Sun, the magazine's office was raided by Toronto police, and in January 1978 the magazine and its publishers were charged with distributing “immoral, indecent or scurrilous material.” A year later, the case was tried. After six days of testimony, the only piece of documentary evidence presented was a copy of The Body Politic containing Hannon's article. The magazine was acquitted, and won again on appeal in 1982.
“I must judge with objectivity and concern for the right of free discussion and dissemination of ideas unless there be a clear incitement to illegal action,” the judge wrote.
The Body Politic ceased publication in 1986 after 15 years and Hannon became a freelancer and part-time instructor of journalism at Toronto Metropolitan University (then Ryerson University). He contributed to many newspapers and magazines, including Toronto Life, the Globe and Mail, Chatelaine, and Xtra.
In 1995, Hannon caught the media's eye again when the Toronto Sun ran a story under the headline “Ryerson Prof: I'm a Hooker” after he had responded truthfully to a reporter who asked if he engaged in sex work.
“Much was written about me, particularly after it was revealed that I supplemented my income from teaching and writing with the wages of sin as a sex worker,” wrote Hannon.
The university suspended him the day after the story came out. Even then, he had his defenders. Christie Blatchford, then a Toronto Sun writer who would later write for the National Post until she died in February 2020, said Hannon was “a genuine eccentric, a tweedy, rumpled and engaging man with outlandish opinions and a steadfast insistence on expressing them.”
“Gerald Hannon's mistake, in his own words, was to have `a controversial idea in an institution that doesn't welcome them.' And isn't it always the way? Now that I'm two decades out of Ryerson, I've finally found a cause I'd protest and a sit-in I'd join?”
Hannon continued working as a freelancer after the scandal, winning 13 National Magazine Awards for his work. He was known for his detailed profiles and ability to capture diverse people in writing such as opera singer Cornelis Opthof, journalist Wendy Mesley, and then-mayoral candidate Rob Ford.
Later in life, Hannon got the most joy from singing opera. Jackson, a former publisher of the Body Politic and in the room when Hannon died, wrote that Hannon became involved with the Toronto City Opera.
“A shameless ham, he was at his best mugging his way through the comic roles,” wrote Jackson in Xtra.
Hannon's long-awaited memoir titled Immoral, Indecent & Scurrilous: The Making of an Unrepentant Sex Radical is scheduled to be published this summer. According to Jackson, Hannon got to see a special advance copy of the book before his death.